An addendum to yesterday's rant...It's hardly surprising that days after Howdy's speech at the anniversary dinner of Quadrant magazine, where he reiterated the Right's role as a "counterforce to the black armband view of Australian history”, the Federal government has taken another swipe at the education system. The Minister of Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, is today delivering a speech to history teachers in Western Australia, arguing for a national take over of the education curriculum to institute a "commonsense curriculum".
As I discussed in my recent post, the current Federal government is compelled to construct an ideological struggle by accusing other people of acting ideologically. Bishop's accusations are an unconvincing attempt at trying to create an "enemy" to justify an ideologically motivated takeover of the education curriculum. To do this she draws on metaphors of war and references to the fight against communism, such as, "teachers are teaching themes which come "straight from Chairman Mao"", "ideologues have hijacked school curriculum."
It's our own special brand of McCarthyism. Must be a shortage of stories on terrorism at the moment...
As I discussed in my recent post, the current Federal government is compelled to construct an ideological struggle by accusing other people of acting ideologically. Bishop's accusations are an unconvincing attempt at trying to create an "enemy" to justify an ideologically motivated takeover of the education curriculum. To do this she draws on metaphors of war and references to the fight against communism, such as, "teachers are teaching themes which come "straight from Chairman Mao"", "ideologues have hijacked school curriculum."
It's our own special brand of McCarthyism. Must be a shortage of stories on terrorism at the moment...
No comments:
Post a Comment